Makers of Comedy Film Aim for Religious Audience

By SARA IVRY

Published: May 28, 2007

More important than the lesson Mel Gibson taught Hollywood about drunken anti-Semitic tirades (that they're bad for publicity) is the one gleaned from his 2004 film ''The Passion of the Christ.'' The movie demonstrated just how many evangelical moviegoers there are and how much money can be made from them.

Mindful of that market, Universal Pictures has teamed up with Grace Hill Media, a public relations firm that reaches out to religious groups, to publicize the mainstream film ''Evan Almighty.'' Scheduled for wide release on June 22, it stars Steve Carell as a politician who abandons Congress in order to build an ark, taking off on the story of Noah.

''Forty-three percent of this country is in church; that's a big chunk of folks,'' said Jonathan Bock, the president of Grace Hill Media. ''You get into the once-a-month -- that's two-thirds of the country. That's not a little niche audience.''

Mr. Bock was approached last year by Universal executives to help with publicity for ''Evan Almighty,'' the sequel to the director Tom Shadyac's 2003 movie ''Bruce Almighty,'' which starred Jim Carrey.

One result of the effort isArkAlmighty.com, a Web site that promotes good deeds. It suggests acts of random kindness and helps participating congregations create online bulletin boards to post requests for help and offers of service among members.

In addition, Universal has held several screenings of ''Evan Almighty'' with religious leaders, hoping that they will recommend the film -- with a PG rating and a protagonist who heeds a call to change the world -- to their congregations.

The Walt Disney Company pursued a similar strategy in 2005, holding private screenings of ''The Chronicles of Narnia: the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe'' for religious leaders before the film's general release. It went on to make almost $300 million at the box office in the United States.

Other studios have gone even further in trying to win evangelicals' favor. Last year, 20th Century Fox created FoxFaith, a unit dedicated to making movies with religious themes.

By comparison, ''Evan Almighty'' seems an unlikely candidate for this kind of marketing. Unlike ''The Passion of the Christ,'' it is a comedy that portrays God in the flesh (played again by Morgan Freeman, wearing a natty white suit). ''Bruce Almighty,'' which made more than $240 million at the box office in the United States, was better known for irreverent humor and Mr. Carrey's mugging than for any underlying religious message.

Universal may have reasons enough to look for divine help. The budget of ''Evan Almighty,'' a movie full of elaborate special effects, has been estimated above $175 million, although the studio will not confirm that figure.

According to Adam Fogelson, the president of marketing for Universal, the studio has had many conversations about appealing to the faithful ever since Mr. Gibson's blockbuster.

''I don't believe there is a way -- or maybe I'm just not sophisticated or smart enough to know what that way is -- to use traditional marketing tactics or tricks to convince the faith audience the film is appropriate for them,'' he said. ''This film is not about cutting trailers and TV spots and radio spots to skew a piece of material to make it seem like a good movie for this crowd.'' He declined to say how much Universal had spent appealing to religious groups.

While the official Web site for the film, evanalmighty.com, provides links to sites about environmental conservation and global warming, it does not include any mention of Universal's outreach to religious groups. But Mr. Fogelson said that omission did not reflect ambivalence toward marketing to them.

He pointed out that Universal had also undertaken marketing efforts to appeal to Latino and youth audiences, but that the ''Evan Almighty'' Web site did not contain links to those efforts either. ''To take the general secular movie site,'' he said, ''and to have a link to a specific faith strikes me as awkward, bordering on inappropriate.''

Photo: Steve Carell, as a newly anointed one, taking a lemonade break with baboons helping him build an ark in ''Evan Almighty,'' a sequel. (Photo by Ralph Nelson/Universal Pictures)